


Kankri: Continue a family tradition.

by PhoenixAccio



Series: In which Dave Strider learns that everyone he's ever met knows his dad. [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-10-19 01:28:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17592125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenixAccio/pseuds/PhoenixAccio
Summary: The Signless finds something unexpected in the ruins of a raided hive.





	Kankri: Continue a family tradition.

Your name is Kankri Vantas and you can't believe you just watched while a drone raid a hive right in front of you. Sure, you have no idea how you could have done anything about it if you'd tried. Sure, you probably would have just gotten yourself culled as well as whoever lives there, but at least you would have done _something,_ instead of just sitting here like a coward and watching it happen. You wait as the twist of guilt settles into your nutrition sac, feeling like a traitor to your own cause, before marching decisively over to the raided hive. Even if you couldn't (didn't) stop the culling drones, you can still go see if anyone survived. When you reach the door, it's clear even if you hadn't seen it happen that drones have been here. The door is splintered into a thousand tiny pieces, and the inside is no better. It looks like every single piece of furniture in the hive has been overturned. The lights are all smashed, as are a few of the interior walls. As you pick your way over the threshold and into the house, you smell the bitter odor of burning electricity.

Wandering through the hive, everything seems basically as one would expect post-drone raid. The culling drones were clearly looking for something, and judging by how empty this place is, you have a horrible feeling they found it. When you step into the next room, however, you stop dead. In the middle of the room lies the body of a very dead carcinoform lusus. It clearly put up a fight to protect its charge, judging by the state of its claws, but it's been completely decapitated and stabbed through the thorax, and the kid is nowhere to be found. You feel a little sick. Being raised by an adult troll, you never had a lusus, but you grew up in a society with trolls who did, and seeing one dead on the floor of its charge's ruined hive still incites a sort of viceral horror, and a deep fear for the troll this lusus was taking care of. You're about to turn way, convinced that anything or anyone that used to live in this hive is long gone, when you notice a trail of smudges leading away from the blood pooling beneath the poor creature in front of you. A trail of smudges that look very much like footprints. A sign of life, the first one you've seen in the hive. You follow the tracks like a zombie entranced by an angler-wraith's lure, unable to look away from this tiny spark of hope. The tracks lead through what probably used to be a doorway, now smashed beyond recignition, into the nutrition block. The smears of blood cross the floor, stopping at the foot of the hunger trunk. There are little smudges of blood on the handle of the thing's door, amd around the frame. Slowly, you reach out and curl your claws around the handle, wary of finding something dead. 

You pull open the hunger trunk, and freeze when you see what's inside. Staring back at you, tucked as tighly into the corner of the tiny space as possible, with his hands over his mouth to muffle breathing, is a troll. He's young, not more than four sweeps, at a guess, and he looks freezing cold and absolutely terrified. His ears are pressed flat against his skull, and his hair is all fluffed up, standing on end to make him look bigger and completely obscuring his horns. He flinches when you reach out which is understandable. You nod, and pull back your claw.

"Hey," you say. Decent start. The troll doesn't say anything, so you continue. "I'm not going to hurt you. I saw the drones leaving your hive and I came to see if anyone was still here. I thought if anyone was left they might need help."

The troll stares at you, wide-eyed. You give your best reassuring chirr, and hold out your claws, palms up, in a nonthreatening gesture. Teeth covered, head tilted back just a touch so your small, rounded horns point away from him. They aren't sharp enough to be of any use whatsoever in a fight, but it's the gesture that counts. Completely nonthreatening.

Slowly, the troll uncurls from his ball and inches out of the hunger trunk, hair settling back down. He doesn't take his hands away from his face, though, and you realize that maybe he wasn't just trying to stifle the sound of his breath after all. You reach forward, slowly, to try and remove one of his hands from his face. His skin is cool when you touch it, from the hunger trunk, perhaps, although it might just be natural for his blood colour, whatever it is. As you pull on his claw, the troll resists, jumping back as he shakes his head.

"It's all right, I won't hurt you. Are you injured?"

This time, you get a muffled grunt back, which doesn't really help, but it's a start.

"Hey, it's okay, I just want to look."

You chirp again, and the troll slowly pulls his claws away from his face, most likely swayed by the fact that an adult troll is telling him to do something, rather than trust for this troll he's never met. It is immediately apparent why the little troll was so terrified to take his claws off his face. Running down his face from his sniffnode is a steady stream of bright red blood.

Exactly the same shade as yours.

You stare at him for a moment, awed, before your thinkpan starts pulling pieces together. This child was nearly killed by drones, and clearly the hunger trunk was the only thing that saved him, chilling his blood enough that he appeared on-spectrum to the drones. His blood is bright, candy red, just like yours, and now that you can see them better, those tiny blunt horns of his look incredibly familiar. You are almost certain this troll is your decendant. The child sees your shocked expression, and clearly misinterprets it as a reaction to his mutated blood. He slaps his claws back over his face before you can say anything to reassure him, and dashes out of the room.

To be fair to him, that's exactly what you would have done in his position. You also know exactly what would solve this problem if you were in his shoes. Not wanting to take out your sickles and risk spooking the kid again, you search the nutrition block for the smallest, least threatening knife you can find that will still break skin. Once you find one you think will work, you head off in the direction he ran off in to find the troll again.

After a couple minutes, you find the kid. He's hiding in his respiteblock, tucked behind the recuperacoon. Slowly, you crouch down to his level. You make sure you have his attention, then slowly lift the knife you found and press it to your palm. The small troll watches, wide-eyed, as the candy-red oozes out of your injured claw.

"It's okay," you tell the troll, tossing the knife away and holding out the claw with the cut. "I'm like you."

The troll's claws come away from his face again, but this time, it's not out of submission, but trust.

"I'm Kankri," you say, not sure why you're suddenly giving your real first name rather than an adult title. "I think I'm your ancestor."

The other troll stares at you for a few long moments, before he speaks for the first time since you found him.

"I'm Karkat."

**Author's Note:**

> kankri, immediately upon meeting baby karkat: alright i guess i have a s9n n9w


End file.
